Microsoft trying to roll out controversial Recall feature again

After several false starts over privacy and security fears, Microsoft is again attempting to bring its AI Recall feature out in to the wild.

As part of a gradual roll out to Windows Insiders, the screenshot-based Recall will be available as an opt-in feature that’s always authenticated by Windows Hello.

“With the AI capabilities of Copilot+ PCs, it’s now possible to quickly find and get back to any app, website, image, or document just by describing its content,” the company said in a blog post

Recall, which was originally billed as a key feature for Microsoft’s new breed of Windows 11 Copilot+ AI PCs, ruffled features upon its original announcement last summer.

The tool works as a photographic memory by grabbing regular screenshots while you go about your daily PC business. Those screenshots can be searchable in a much more dynamic way than the traditional Windows File Explorer.

It can work across files, websites, photos and all manner of other content and is designed to make rediscovery really easy if you can’t remember where you saved the file, when you took the photo and where you saw the cool trainers you’re looking to buy.

Microsoft said it has trained Recall to think more like the human brain that first interacted with the content in the first place, making it a much more effective means of hunting down content. So, for example, you might be able to load Copilot or bring up the Recall timeline from the taskbar and ask the AI to “find the site with the white sneakers”

Upon its announcement, security researchers discovered the limitations of the security protections, which could be easily bypassed without administrator privileges on a PC. From a privacy perspective, many pointed out that it’s not always desirable to have your activity on your PC screenshotted and saved in a vast database.

Microsoft went to great lengths to stop the feature being creepy and dangerous before the planned launch last autumn was delayed once again.

Opinion

Microsoft keeps trying with Recall feature despite the backlash.

Trying to track down files and photos can be a time consuming nightmare because computational search hasn’t traditionally operated like the human brain does. Sometimes, you can’t just describe a document, you need the file name.

It does sound like a useful feature and I’m happy Microsoft has decided it can be opt-in. However, it must be safe and private. We haven’t seen that evidence yet.

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